Saxophonist Cory Weeds has been a professional musician for the better part of 20 years and pretty much covers every role on the Vancouver jazz scene - musician, record producer, record label owner and jazz club owner.

Most recently, Cory was honoured with a 2013 Juno Award nomination for Traditional Jazz Album of the Year for The Cory Weeds' Quartet Album "Up A Step, The Music of Hank Mobley." A beautiful tribute to the composing talents of one of the finest tenor saxophonists ever, Hank Mobley, Up A Step features talented saxophonist Cory Weeds along with special guests, world renowned organist Mike LeDonne plus Oliver Gannon (guitar) and Jesse Cahill (drums).

His follow up to "Up A Step" was recorded with guitarist Bill Coon, and the formidable bass/drum team of Peter Washington and Lewis Nash. Heralded by Peter Hum of The Ottawa Citizen as "an early contender for a 2013 Juno Award," "With Benefits" spent an unprecedented 14 weeks on the Jazz Week Charts making it as high as #5! In January of 2013 Weeds assembled a quartet augmented by trombone powerhouse Steve Davis (Chick Corea, Jackie McLean) for a U.S. and Canadian Tour that resulted in "Let's Go" recorded live at New York City's Smoke Jazz Club. "Let's Go" will be released in January, 2014.

In September of 2013 Weeds hit the road with a new project fronting a trio led by legendary pianist HAROLD MABERN (Lee Morgan, Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis). The chemistry was instantaneous and the free wheeling Harold Mabern was preaching the gospel of jazz music everywhere he went. To listen to Harold speak is as fun as he is to listen to. The quartet performed 11 shows in British Columbia in 2013 and went into the studio to cut an album that will be released in June 2014.

Harold Mabern is one of jazz's most enduring and dazzlingly skilled pianists. Born in Memphis, he was an unsung hero of the 1960s hardbop scene, but only in recent years has he begun to garner appreciation for his long-running legacy in jazz and the understated power of his talent. During his over half-century on the scene as sideman and leader, he has played and recorded with such greats as Lee Morgan, Sonny Rollins, Hank Mobley, Freddie Hubbard and Miles Davis, just to name a few.

"Mabern's piano style is aggressive, very positive, crashing out chords that drop like pile drivers, and warming up and down the keyboard with huge, whooping bursts of action." John Wilson - New York Times

"Weeds is best known as the owner of the Jazz Cellar on Broadway but his jazz label, Cellar Live, has produced a consistently good line of albums. Naturally, he has recorded himself on sax and fits right in. It's great to see that someone who stands for something he professes to love can also back his talk up with proof. Here he and his group pay tribute to a variety of styles but perhaps the standout is the opening track, "BB's Blue Blues," a composition by Ross Taggart that swings mightily."Tom Harrison - The Vancouver Province

"If anything, there is jazz in full bloom here, end-to-end." Raul d'Gama Rose - All About Jazz